Digg & Revision3

I wanted to post a short rant about my disappointment in these two companies. One is called Digg and the other Revision3. They are essentially run by the same group of people and both are essentially failing… They are at least in my eyes among many others. Kevin Rose is the mastermind behind Digg and has helped start Revision3 with another Ex-CEO from Digg. Digg is a social news website where it use to be that the users would submit interesting news covering a wide range of topics. Digg just released v4 of their site and it’s been a monstrous crash. Despite the major technological errors that have happened, users that used to love the site now are fleeing from it en masse. On the side of Revision3 I’ve been sorely let down by them randomly canceling some of my favorite shows. First it was the Digg Reel, poof gone. Then the show ROFL lost a host, which hopefully doesn’t mean anything worse is coming. Food Mob has now been canceled. Which was even one show that had my girlfriend watching. Film Riot has been on a one month hiatus, and since all of these other shows have been canceled I’m now worried for Film Riot. Even though I’ve tried to remain loyal to Digg and Revision3 because I love what they started out doing, I feel there is a new direction that’s coming and it’s not going to be good. I use to subscribe to almost all of Revision3’s shows, but now in my iTunes I have three. One of those being Film Riot which I’m worried about.

I believe that behind Digg they’ve taken a lot of power away from the user on how the site works. It used to be that users could bury, digg, shout, etc… We could pretty much use the site how we saw fit. Bury spam stories and comments, Digg the good ones as well as sharing them with our whole friend list. Now all I notice on the home page are sponsored stories and stories from the same small group of BIG websites or SPAM websites. For one I already check out the BIG websites like Engadget, Gizmodo, etc… I don’t exactly need every one of their stories on the front page. Secondly SPAM stories…. We can’t even bury them to let Digg know that they are just a crap site. I hope Digg can make a turnaround quick. It doesn’t exactly look good though with their CEO troubles, layoffs, horrible launch of v4, and who knows what else.

On Revision3’s side of it is a little more subjective. I loved that they were adding a ton of diversity with their show line up. It finally wasn’t all tech nerd shows. They had Food Mob for cooking, Film Riot to learn about film making, ROFL has an awesome collection of indie comedians, Joe Genius is about science etc, Digg Reel brought us the best of crazy videos from the internet… Out of all of those shows I love only ROFL has put out anything this month. That is if you don’t count the short Food Mob clip of them telling us it’s over… I’m sure I could be a little more understanding if we as the Rev3 audience knew more about their decisions. The thing is is that we don’t. Random show cancellations without any reason as to why leaves me wondering and hurt. Now that Revisions3 is back down to a few diverse shows and mainly tech nerd stuff I’m hardly much of a fan anymore. I don’t have anything against the tech nerd shows like HD Nation, Systm, Tekzilla, Hak5, Destructoid, TRS, Coop. But they all revolve around computers, tech, and video games. I love editing film, trying to learn how to cook, etc… but sadly it’s all in the past now.

I’ll stop ranting now but I want a little more transparency from these two companies which are heading into some hard times. Why did Digg take away the power from their users, and why is Revision3 canceling shows without reason to their loyal watchers/subscribers. What do you think about all of this? Let me know by leaving a comment.

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2 Replies to “Digg & Revision3”

Hey Ryan
Just wanted to say thanks for being a loyal Rev3 viewer and for sharing your feedback. We blogged about this a few weeks ago (http://revision3.com/blog/2010/10/26/programming-update-food-mob-rofl/) but probably could have done a better job getting the word out, so please forgive us for random blindsides. Meanwhile, stay tuned for announcements on some great new shows we’ve got in the hopper. Hopefully somethings that you and your girlfriend will both enjoy!
Keep the feedback coming (you can always email us at info@revision3.com) and thanks again for watching.
-Michele (Revision3)

The blog post still didn’t really give me any clarity to why the shows went the way they did, i.e. not enough viewers, ratings, budget, etc… I do understand though that that might be information Rev3 will keep private. I wrote the post in a state of shock, so take it as is. I loved those shows and do hope you guys have more great stuff in store. Hopefully to diversify from the %100 tech tinted shows.

I like what Rev3 is doing, otherwise I wouldn’t care enough to post about it. Thanks again for the comment! I’ll be looking forward to some new content.